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 Higgins & Bailey exposé on ATSB attempted MH370 cover-up - 

Via the Oz today: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines...b1295297e6

ATSB ‘paid lawyers’ to quiet media
EAN HIGGINS

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has refused to release correspondence about its failed ­attempt through big-end-of-town lawyers to restrict The Australian’s coverage of claims it used the wrong theory to search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

The ATSB will not say how much taxpayer money it paid law firm Minter Ellison to prepare and send a letter asking this newspaper to “refrain” from its style of coverage of veteran Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance’s new book revealing a detailed analysis of wing parts from the Boeing 777 found washed up on ­islands off Africa.

Mr Vance, supported by two other experts in the field, claims his examination conclusively shows the aircraft was flown by a pilot to the end and deliberately ditched in a controlled fashion, because the flaps were extended.

This runs contrary to the ­theory the bureau used in the strategy for its failed $200 million search for the aircraft, which holds that MH370 was a “ghost flight” at the end with “unresponsive” pilots, and crashed down in an uncontrolled fashion after fuel exhaustion.

If the ATSB’s theory is wrong and Mr Vance and experienced airline captains including Briton Simon Hardy, New Zealander Mike Keane and Australian Byron Bailey are right, it means the ATSB looked in the wrong place in its two-year hunt for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a scheduled flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, with its last radio and secondary radar contact recorded 40 minutes into the flight, after which it took a zig-zag route back over Malaysia before a long track south, automatic satellite tracking data showed.

Days after The Australian ran a series of reports in May on Mr Vance’s findings and their implications, the newspaper received an extensive letter from Minter Ellison partner Andrew Gill, warning of various implied possible adverse actions if the newspaper continued with this coverage.

Mr Gill particularly objected to The Australian naming the leader of the ATSB’s failed search for MH370, Peter Foley, and its spokesman, Paul Sadler, as not responding to emails from The Australian seeking comment.

“Our client requests that you refrain from publishing any further articles regarding this incident or our client without first considering the concerns raised in this letter, particularly with ­respect to naming individual ­employees,” Mr Gill wrote.

The Australian made a Freedom of Information request seeking correspondence between ATSB officers and Minter Ellison, including material showing how much the bureau paid the law firm. In a decision received by The Australian last week, the ATSB’s acting chief operating officer for corporate services, Chris Fitzpatrick, rejected the FOI request, releasing only an email from The Australian to ATSB spokesman Daniel O’Malley seeking confirmation of background. Mr Fitzpatrick refused to release 15 other documents, including invoices.

He rejected most of the FOI request so as to look after the interest of “third parties”.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood and legal and governance officer Patrick Hornby would not say who instructed Minter Ellison or how much the ATSB paid the law firm.

And from Byron Bailey: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion...c11a912cc8

Inquest answer to MH370 secrecy
BYRON BAILEY
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s attempts to suppress media coverage of their search for MH370 is a disgrace.

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MH370: Inquest the answer to ATSB’s shameful act of secrecy

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s attempts at using high-priced lawyers to suppress coverage of its failures in its search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are a disgrace, and a threat to the democratic principles of free speech and press freedom.

Transport Minister Michael McCormack should hold the ATSB to account. With the ATSB hiding details about its failed search, only a coronial inquiry can get justice for the six Australians who disappeared with the aircraft and 233 other souls on March 8, 2014, on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The MH370 hunt may be on hold but eventually details about the failed search will come out and the ATSB, protected by legislation from producing documents requested by The Australian under several Freedom of Information applications, will have to reveal all.

The ATSB’s FOI officers last week decided the disclosure of documents could have an adverse effect on a “third party’s” business and declined to release the sought-after material. I wonder how much taxpayers’ money is being wasted on the legal attempts to suppress evidential material. Former transport minister Warren Truss needs to be asked whether he directed the ATSB, so as not to annoy the Malaysians, to plan the MH370 search on the basis of a ghost flight of dead pilots — even though the ATSB appeared to have little evidence to support such a scenario. This despite the Malaysian prime minister initially stating it was a case of deliberate human intervention, and aviation professionals pointing out that MH370 was obviously flown under control for the final seven hours. To base the search on a controlled flight would suggest the captain of MH370 was the culprit.

We also need an answer as to why the ATSB steadfastly refused to entertain the calculated search area proposed by British Boeing 777 captain Simon Hardy a few months after the event. This target zone centred on a position about 40km outside the ATSB search area and could have been completely covered in a matter of days. Much of the evidence supports Hardy’s theory and little supports the ATSB.

Only a coronial inquest, which the Queensland government could order given that four of the lost on MH370 were from that state, will suffice to explain the deaths of the Australians on that flight.

Never in the history of aviation have authorities, to this extent, attempted to avoid revealing evidence in answer to airline crashes. The safety of the airline industry is still on trial until this likely cold-case homicide is resolved. The small-area search for the wreckage of MH370 should be restarted based on the analysis of evidence from aviation experts, and not from bureaucrats.

Hmm...not a good look Hoody - not a good look indeed!!...  


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[Gobbledock]

Of hiding things under rocks and jumping at shadows

What is ridiculous about HVH’s antics and refusing to release the legal expenditure  information is that quite simply it is OUR money, taxpayer money. We have a right to know who is spending it, how they are spending it, why they are spending it and on what they are spending it. As soon as a Government agency throws up a hastily built brick wall to palm off an FOI request then you know they are covering up. Pretty simple really. There is no ‘security intelligence threat’ from releasing that information. None whatsoever, so why hide it? Perhaps Hoody doesn’t want us to see how much it costs beachside that money could have gone toward hiring another accident investigator or providing those good frontline investigators with additional tools of the trade or training?

Silly silly emotional Hoody trying to bury information. Even more stupid of Miniscule McDo’nothing to allow it. Fools

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That man's book on MH370?? 

Via that man Higgins:

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That man's book on MH370?? 

Via that man Higgins:

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Update: Via the Oz today.

Dick Smith urges small airfare levy to fund new MH370 search



Dick Smith. Picture: Jonathan Ng
ROBYN IRONSIDE
AVIATION WRITER
@ironsider

12:00AM FEBRUARY 27, 2019
11 COMMENTS
Veteran aviator Dick Smith has used the launch of a new book on the MH370 mystery to call for airlines to introduce a small levy on fares to raise money for another search.

Launching The Hunt for MH370 by The Australian’s Ean Higgins, Mr Smith said it was almost unbelievable that the Boeing 777-200ER remained missing almost five years after it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

There were 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines flight, including six Australians, but all that has been found of the jet is a dozen or so pieces of debris.


Mr Smith said a levy of just 10c a fare could raise as much as $350 million towards a new ocean search, given 3.5 billion people travelled by air each year.

“I just simply can’t believe that the safety regulators around the world have said nothing about the need to find MH370,” he said.

“I’m not at all convinced we know what happened and because of that, it is imperative we find the aircraft and the black boxes so if it was a design fault (with the aircraft) we can fix it and save lives in the future.”

Mr Smith said if there had not been an extended search for Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean, information about why the plane crashed would remain unknown.

“They spent the extra money and found the flight data recorder which revealed one of the flight crew held the side stick controller in the stall position,” Mr Smith said.

“No one would’ve guessed that but now every pilot is taught not to do that.”

Higgins said all the families he had spoken to in the course of researching and writing his book were desperate to know what happened to their loved ones and deserved answers.

“I think it’s more a matter of will than money that’s lacking in renewing the search,” he said. “Boeing recently reported $US100 billion in sales and it could, as Airbus did for Air France 447, put up some money to fund a new hunt.

“So could, and so should, China whose nationals accounted for two-thirds of the passengers on the aircraft.”

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 293 airlines worldwide, was unable to support Mr Smith’s call for an airfare levy to fund a new MH370 search.

Assistant director of corporate communications Albert Tjoeng said there was already a well established process for accident investigation, included in Inter­national Civil Aviation Organ­isation’s annex 13.

“There is nothing in the ICAO annexes that would establish a precedent for the kind of funding mechanism being suggested, nor would IATA support such a mechanism,” Mr Tjoeng said.

Mr Smith said that without knowing what happened to MH370 there would always be some doubt about the safety of air travel. “This situation hasn’t occurred before and we have to change that for the confidence of the airline industry,” he said.

“Every passenger who flies now must be concerned.”

[Gobbledock]

The IATA muppet said;

“There is nothing in the ICAO annexes that would establish a precedent for the kind of funding mechanism being suggested, nor would IATA support such a mechanism,” Mr Tjoeng said”.

And there you have it. ICAO = just another bureaucracy filled with trough dwellers lining the trough. Fu#k the ICAO Annexes and your stupid box ticking bullshit. Create a law or rule and then go find the bloody plane. Absolute morons.

Dick Smith pisses all over the ICAO fools. Smart logic, minimal cost; 10 cents per ticket. That’s nothing!!! A cool $350m should do the trick. Well done Dick Smith for promoting sense and reason. It is beyond ridiculous that the 777 has been sitting for 5 years at the bottom of the ocean, ‘lost’.

Tick Tock

[Kharon]

Where there’s a will; there’s a way.

The French aircraft ‘lost’ in the ocean was found. There was a will to find it and those concerned found a way. The rest in history and efforts made to prevent it ever reoccurring.  Good deal all around......

Australian government has given away the cost of a search ten fold on important things like land rights for gay whales and lots of other ‘important’ things. I would suggest that had any involved government which actually wanted (a) to find the aircraft and; (b) define the real cause of this ‘disappearing’ aircraft, they would have done so by now. How much do you reckon the USA will throw at the latest tragedy in Texas? Do you reckon the NTSB will shrug and walk away if finding the ‘black-boxes’ proves too difficult?

Yet the involved governments have gotten all parsimonious, crying poor and claiming it’s all too hard. Fine; but I would like one small question answered properly. Why has the ‘ground based’ inquiry never turned up one single tangible shred of ‘whodunnit’ evidence or provable statement relating to why.

Someone, somewhere one day will stumble over this aircraft; perhaps then the truth will emerge. This event may take a while, for clearly no one seems to be looking for it. I’m left to wonder why.

A large passenger aircraft vanishes’ without trace, without any accurate reasons why being given; and, nobody cares? WTD is this world coming to.

Toot – toot.

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MH370: That man 'Iggins in the Oz


Via the Oz today:

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MH370: the plane truth is out there

EAN HIGGINS @EanHiggins

12:00AM FEBRUARY 28, 2019


MH370 pilot ­Zaharie Ahmad Shah.








A Malaysia Airlines plane parked on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Somewhere out in the southern Indian Ocean, maybe in one of the underwater canyons of Broken Ridge, but beyond the Seventh Arc, lies the answer to the world’s greatest aviation mystery.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when some very strange things happened on the Boeing 777. They caused a pilot to turn around, fly a zigzag course back over Malaysia, up the Straits of Malacca, then south to vanish in the middle of ­nowhere, all without a word from anyone on board.

Five years after it disappeared, the aircraft is still there, probably in very deep and cold water, well preserved along with the 239 souls on board, but just not yet found.

Once it is discovered the mystery can be solved. The flight data recorder, the cockpit voice ­recorder, the identity and disposition of anyone in the cockpit at the controls, the configuration and nature of damage to the different parts of the aircraft and, ­macabre though it is, the pathology of those on board will provide the clues.

We will learn why the aircraft turned around about 40 minutes into the flight. We will glean ­insight as to why at that time the secondary radar transponder was turned off and there was no further radio contact after the captain, ­Zaharie Ahmad Shah, delivered the last transmission: “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.”

Extreme theories

Over the years since MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, there has been no shortage of speculation about what happened. Some believe it may have been a hijacking gone wrong. Others think there may have been a fire on board, possibly caused by the combination of cargo including lithium-ion batteries and the tropical fruit mangosteens.

There are those who look at ­accidental depressurisation, in which the pilots became a bit ­hypoxic, or light-headed, because of a faulty oxygen supply — not enough to pass out but enough to make silly and illogical decisions and fly the aircraft in a strange way.

Then there are the more ­extreme theories, such as that a rogue nation such as North Korea hacked into the aircraft’s control systems and electronically “captured” it.

Others, including some families of the Chinese passengers on the flight, say the official interpretation that MH370 flew south is wrong, and the aircraft was in fact hijacked and flown northwest to Central Asia and landed at an ­Islamic rebel air base, its passengers and crew still held hostage to this day.

And there is one theory that the captain, his marriage having collapsed, took a parachute on board in his flight crew bag, and depressurised the aircraft to kill everyone else.

He then set the aircraft on a course on automatic pilot, bailed out, and was picked up in a boat by his mistress to find a new life under stolen identities in another ­country.



Mass murder

Most professionals in the aviation business, though, believe the evidence best points to Zaharie having hijacked his own aircraft in a complex and cunning act of mass murder-suicide. The only debate there is whether, as the Australian Transport Safety Bureau maintains, MH370 was a “ghost flight” by the end, flying on autopilot with no one conscious and crashing down rapidly after fuel exhaustion. Or did Zaharie fly the aircraft to the end, making a controlled ditching to try to keep as much of MH370 intact as possible and sink it with a minimal debris field?

If the ATSB officials had worked on the premise that a pilot flew the aircraft to the end, they would effectively have had to say they believed MH370 was most likely hijacked by Zaharie. By saying instead, as they did, that MH370 had an “unresponsive crew” at the end, they could avoid making such a call publicly.

Many veteran airline captains and top air crash investigators suspect the ATSB officials, even if subconsciously, came up with what became known as their “ghost flight” and “death dive” ­theory to avoid having to publicly embarrass the Malaysian government and its government-owned national flag carrier by saying one of their pilots took 238 passengers and crew of many nationalities to their deaths.

The ATSB says, emphatically, no: the bureau’s officers have told Senate estimates they worked ­objectively on facts, science and logic, consulting the best experts in the field to ­establish their target search area, without bias or subjective ­influences.

If the ATSB is right, the aircraft came pretty much straight down after it ran out of fuel, producing a relatively narrow search zone. If Zaharie flew the aircraft to the end and ditched it, he could have taken it a much longer distance, perhaps 100 nautical miles and well outside the search area the bureau defined.

Where to look

There have been two extensive searches of the seabed, the first led by the ATSB at the Malaysian government’s request, the second by the British-owned, Houston-based private undersea survey company Ocean Infinity. Both came up with naught.

The MH370 mystery will not ­finally be solved until the aircraft is found and the black boxes ­recovered.

The question would be where to look. The best clue on where to find MH370 remains the satellite data, which tracked seven roughly hourly automatic electronic “handshakes” over the course of the flight.

The seventh and last handshake has given searchers a long arc upon which MH370 is thought to have come down, but not the point on the arc where it lies.

One obvious option would be to search a progressively wider stretch around the Seventh Arc beyond that already covered, or farther north or a little farther south.

The problem with such an ­approach is that it would still be based on the ATSB’s ­assumptions about how the flight ended, which have been progressively challenged by new facts and independent expert analysis.

Between the ATSB-led search, which cost $200 million of Australian, Chinese and Malaysian taxpayer money, and that of Ocean Infinity, about 250,000sq km of seabed in the southern Indian Ocean were covered.

An increasing number of aviation professionals are asking: since the search based on the ATSB’s theory failed to find the aircraft, why not consider a new hunt based on the ­alternative scenario that Zaharie flew the aircraft to the end?

Pilots’ conclusions

Byron Bailey, Simon Hardy and Mike Keane are three highly ­experienced aviators who started their careers as military officers and went on to the top of their profession as senior airline captains.

The trio have each studied the MH370 saga and ­concluded that the evidence shows only one possible conclusion: Zaharie flew the aircraft to the end and ditched it.

They have each pursued their own calculations of where MH370 lies, producing different outcomes but all in a relatively small area just outside the southern end of where the ATSB searched.

Hardy identified this search zone in 2015. He used the same radar and satellite tracking data to develop a mathematical formula based on similar calculations of speed, wind, direction and ­endurance along the Seventh Arc as the ATSB employed, but with the ­additional assumption of a controlled glide or engines-running descent of about 100 nautical miles at the end and a ditching by Zaharie.

Hardy spoke with me from Mumbai, where he had arrived after piloting a Boeing 777 from London. In addition to his lengthy flying experience, he also has a large amount of engineering and track-plotting expertise.

He took up a Royal Navy flying scholarship aged 17, and the British navy put him through university to earn a design engineering ­degree.

He served as a senior design ­engineer working on torpedo guidance systems.

Hardy’s process followed basic geometry, solving simultaneous equations, and fundamental navigation techniques such as taking three bearings to work out a position. He used the seven arcs to make calculations of simple logic of distances and speed. Like the ­geometry one learns at school, Hardy’s analysis had a very satisfying end: a logical “QED” showing MH370’s likely resting place.

Hardy’s reckoning puts the most likely co-ordinates at 40 degrees South and 086.5 degrees East. But allowing for some elasticity in the variables, he proposes a search area of 7000sq km.

Hardy put his findings to the ATSB but the bureau did not search where he proposed.

Keane started his flying career as a navigator in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, before moving to the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot.

He then went into civilian aviation, retiring as chief pilot of Britain’s largest airline, easyJet.

Keane likes the idea of searching the deep underwater canyons known to be in this area, where he thinks Zaharie would have tried to sink the plane, including the Geelvinck Fracture Zone. His best guess is 38 degrees 15 minutes South, 86 degrees 48 minutes East.

Bailey also began his aviation career as a navigator in the RNZAF, switched to the RAAF as a fighter pilot, and then became an airline captain, including flying Boeing 777s for Emirates.

He points out that he and his colleagues’ calculations are not very different from those of the ATSB’s early search plan based on the Defence Science and Technology Group’s original “hot spot” of probability.

Bailey’s estimate puts MH370 gliding after pursuing a true track of 188 degrees. He puts MH370 at 39 degrees, 10 minutes South, 88 degrees 15 minutes East.

If a new hunt were launched in their proposed 7000sq km search zone, and the pilots are right, MH370 could be found in a week or two at the rate Ocean Infinity searched, at a cost of perhaps $10m to $20m.

There’s no guarantee of success — there are still too many unknowns. But thus far the searches based on other approaches have failed. At the time of writing, the pilots had the most developed and authoritative alternative theory of where to look.

With the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of MH370 ­approaching, that informal professional team makes a compelling case that their analysis deserves a shot to offer the families hope of closure where others have tried and failed.

The is an edited extract from Ean Higgins’s book The Hunt for MH370, published this week.

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Jeanette awaits MH370 answers
EAN HIGGINS

Not knowing the whereabouts of the remains of her beloved sister and brother-in-law compounds the grief for Jeanette Maguire.

In the living room of her home in Brisbane, Jeanette Maguire has a small shrine, of sorts, to Cathy and Bob Lawton, her sister and brother-in-law, lost on MH370.


The little collection has a photo of the couple on their wedding day, a couple of purple candles from the memorial service for the MH370 disappeared, and one of the china dolls Cathy used to collect.

A small wooden plaque has the word “Sister” on it and the words, “God made us sisters, our hearts made us friends”.

There is also a small handpainted candleholder showing butterflies darting around flowers, and the words: “Butterfly Wishes … believe in the beautiful, amazing woman you are.” The candleholder was, Jeanette said, what “one of my beautiful old work colleagues bought me for Christmas in 2014, after Bob and Cathy’s disappearance. It was an amazing present and represented all that she saw me go through that year.”

Those MH370 next of kin I’ve interviewed have carried on, coping with their grief and lack of knowing, each in their own way.

As a family, Jeanette said, “we are very loving, very strong”.

“To get through in our world, we have a lot of humour between us.”

But the MH370 families still struggle every day with the unhealed emotional wounds.

“I am still gutted inside,” Jeanette said. “A big part of me is lost with them. Bob was like my big brother. I was 11 when Cathy met Bob.”

In her case, Jeanette’s job as a payroll manager has been her refuge.

“My safe haven was to go to work and lead a different life.”

But, Jeanette said, she just cannot escape MH370.

“Dealing with Cathy’s girls and grandchildren … I am here, but I am not here. At least if we know where they are, at least we have their burial area,” Jeanette said. “At least we will have the place.”

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MH370 Fifth Anniversary - Update. 

Via the WP:

Malaysia welcomes U.S. tech firm's help in Flight MH370 search on fifth anniversary

FILE - In this March 31, 2014 file photo, the shadow of a Royal New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion is seen on low level cloud while the aircraft searches for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian .

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By Eileen Ng - The Washington Times - Sunday, March 3, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s transport minister said Sunday that the government is open to new proposals from U.S. technology firm Ocean Infinity or any other companies to resume the hunt for Flight 370, as families of passengers marked the fifth anniversary of the jet’s mysterious disappearance.

Ocean Infinity mounted a “no cure, no fee” search for the plane in the southern Indian Ocean in January 2018 that ended in May without any clue on where it could have crashed. But the company’s CEO, Oliver Plunkett, said in a video shown at the public remembrance event at a mall near Kuala Lumpur that the company hopes to resume the hunt with better technology it obtained in the past year.

The Ocean Infinity mission came a year after an official search by Malaysia, Australia and China ended in futility.
Plunkett said his company has better technology now after successfully locating an Argentinian submarine in November, a year after it went missing. He said the firm is still reviewing all possible data on Flight 370 and thinking about how it can revive its failed mission.

“We haven’t given up hope. … We hope we can continue the search in due course,” Plunkett said.

And KS Narendran, via FB   : https://www.facebook.com/notes/narendran...567951842/

At the 2019 MH370 Remembrance event today...

NARENDRAN KS·SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2019


 Friends,

My family and friends in India send you their greetings.

Unlike previous years, I have been ambivalent about making this trip. I have searched hard to understand this. It is almost 5 years since I saw off my wife, Chandrika, and the last we heard from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the flight she boarded en route to Mongolia.

It has been a long haul dealing with loss and rebuilding a life, a task that remains incomplete. What became clear is that lately the cloud of sorrow and despair, the listlessness with life in general, and the restlessness with the MH370 search and investigation has become less intense.

What remains is the solidarity with the MH families, their loss and struggles to cope, to envision a future and reconstruct their lives.  This only grows as each nuance in a shared language of loss, grief and reconstruction becomes more widely shared and understood.

5 years is a long time.

Among the MH families, the old have grown older. Some whose will to live was broken by irreconcilable loss believe they have nothing left to live for.

Among the young, some have by now moved on to pursue studies, take up jobs, moved home, find partners, have babies, … Somethings to cheer about and remind ourselves that winter is not the only season, each day isn’t always drab, and the sky isn’t only grey.

However, many among us continue to struggle while applying ourselves to the chores of daily existence. For all of us, knowing what happened to MH370 remains the key to unlock a part of our lives, our energies.

Our prayers have remained unchanged: Find the plane. Find the passengers. Give us answers to ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘how’ and if it comes to it, ‘who’.

Give us the truth.

Yes, give us the truth. Not too many people we know are convinced that 459 pages of the 2018 report is the sum total of all that is known regarding the disappearance of MH370. Those who know more but have chosen silence, if indeed there are some, will eventually die a thousand deaths each day, for guilt is a latecomer but an unforgiving squatter. It is the order of things and not what we would wish for them.

In this search for the truth, there isn’t a Malaysian truth, an Australian truth, a British truth or an American one. Or (even) an Indian and a Chinese one. There were 239 passengers from 14 countries. An international mix of nationalities. A Boeing 777, an American company’s product. The incident is believed to have occurred in the Indian Ocean, in international waters. The investigation is governed by the conventions written in by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Experts from across the world when consulted or otherwise, have weighed in with their analysis and recommendations regarding the search. It is an event that concerns, every airline, every passenger and perhaps almost every family across the world exposed to civil aviation.

To suggest as some do that it should be left to Malaysians to script the story and the end game does not cut ice. If anything, the fact that it was a Malaysian airline’s flight under Malaysian air traffic control and Malaysia’s leadership of the investigation places an unshakable burden of responsibility to the world at large….to persist, to mobilize the funds necessary, and to hunt for the credible evidence for further search that it never tires of reminding us as being a requirement.  It also has responsibility to test the claims of those who proclaim new knowledge, new evidence and fresh coordinates, and offer a public, transparent well-argued refutation if indeed that is what will end misguided or false narratives.

The best tribute we can offer to those we have lost is through demonstrating the will to find credible answers, fix the issues and assure the world that more lives will not lost in future to similar incidents.

A new Malaysia under this new Government has been the source of new fledgling hope.

To those who have fallen silent travelling on MH370, we remain respectful and eternally indebted for the time they shared with us. To those who have offered silent support, those who have lent their voice and those who have sent their prayers, we remain grateful. We draw strength from your little acts of kindness, words of solidarity, and your quest for the truth - whichever corner of the earth you seek it from.

Questions have a way of persisting and even outliving you and me till satisfactorily answered. I go back to pick up the threads of my life in Chennai secure and with faith that one day we will know.

Thank you.

And via 60 Minutes Australia:

Finally from ABC's Radio National 'that man 'Iggins' interviewed by Hugh Riminton: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro...t/10854430

5 Years Later: The mystery behind the MH370 flight

• Listen now(Link will open in new window)
  
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Sunday 3 March 2019 8:45AM (view full episode)


IMAGE: INDONESIAN FISHERMAN RUSLI KHUSMIN SHOWS LOCATION OF WHERE HE THINK THE MH730 CRASHED AT A PRESS CONFERENCE IN 2019. KHUSMIN SAYS HE WAS IN THE NEARBY WHEN THE PLANE CRASHED. (MOHD SAMSUL MOHD SAID, GETTY)LINK TO LARGER IMAGE.

In March 2014, the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 suddenly vanished as it flew over the South China sea — along with the 239 people on board.

The disappearance remains enshrouded in mystery, 5 years on.

Award-winning journalist Ean Higgins draws upon years of investigation, analysis and interviews in an attempt to uncover what went wrong and who is to blame.

Guest: Ean Higgins, author and journalist.

His new book "The Hunt for MH370. The Hunt, The Mystery. The Cover up. The Truth" is published by Pan Macmillan

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Latest on #MH370 cover-up? - 

Via the Courier Mail: https://www.couriermail.com.au/.../opini...up-over-wh...

[quote]
Opinion: Has there been a cover up over what happened to MH370? The families deserve answers

PLANE missing. Malaysian Airlines flight from KL to China. Australians on board. It was a simple and typically succinct email from my chief of staff, Matthew Connors, and it came at 9.46am, Saturday, March 8, 2014.

When a big story happens in a newsroom, a sense of organised chaos emerges, as reporters and photographers are assigned to their stories. In those first, frenetic hours, as we learned more by the minute, it became increasingly clear that this was not a typical airline crash.

As the day wore on, the overwhelming question kept recurring – where is this plane? It had literally vanished. How could a plane with 239 people on board just disappear from the face of the earth?

MH370 clues: Where to next

Missing data twist in new MH370 theory

The disappearance of MH370 is now the greatest mystery in aviation history, costing six Australians their lives, including Brisbane couples Rodney Burrows, 59 and his wife Mary, 54, and Robert Lawton, 58, and his wife Catherine, 54.

As the editor of The Sunday Mail on that fateful day, it was important that, as a newspaper, we not only gave readers the facts as we knew them, but treated the story with sensitivity and responsibility, for the sake of the victims’ families. To this day, the families of the Brisbane victims have only spoken to The Sunday Mail.

COVER UP

What we now know is that while there are several credible theories – including pilot mass murder-suicide, hijack or an explosion – there are serious questions as to whether Australia’s aviation regulator is treating the victims’ families with the respect and dignity they deserve.

In his compelling book, The Hunt for MH370, The Australian’s Ean Higgins makes it clear that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is not telling us everything it knows.

This lack of transparency is extraordinary. What have they got to hide? The ATSB has been remarkably vague, obfuscating at every turn on this investigation.

Higgins also raises questions about the decision-making by the ATSB on where to focus the search for the aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean.

Higgins says: “In my efforts to get to the truth … the ATSB and the Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre have engaged in some repressive media practices not usually consistent with public sector agencies in a democracy.

“They tried to have me taken off the story for persisting with questions they didn’t want to answer, an attempt the editors rejected.”

As it became more desperate to suppress The Australian’s reportage of criticism of its search finding, the ATSB hired a top law firm to issue warnings to the editors to “refrain’’ from its style of coverage – warnings the editors tossed aside and exposed’’.

WHAT DID HAPPEN?

As for what happened, Higgins says aviation experts believe the most likely scenario is that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, hijacked his own aircraft as part of a cunning act of mass murder-suicide.

There are other well-credentialed theories that it was a hijacking gone wrong, a fire on board caused by lithium batteries, accidental depressurisation, and a theory that North Korea hacked into the control systems and caused the crash. Even aliens have been put into the mix.

Whatever the scenario, the Australian Government must be much more proactive and open with any ongoing findings or search efforts.

The key issue here is that the national aviation regulator knows more than what it is letting on, and that’s not acceptable in a democracy like Australia where truth and accountability are fundamental to our way of life.

Five years on, the families of those who perished on MH370 deserve the truth. The cover up must end.

MTF...P2

[Kharon]

On the edge of Occam’s razor.

The thing that intrigues the most, is what is left behind after all the theory, rhetoric and hysteria has been expounded. A short stroll down memory lane and a little work on Google gets the bump of curiosity working – in a ruminating, ambling almost subconscious fashion until a question rises which cannot be answered.

In almost every major aviation event – in time, there is an answer provided and without fail those responsible are named. This is particularly true where ‘mechanical’ or ‘operational’ failures have been identified; and, even truer where ‘criminal’ activity is involved.

Suspect 1 – mechanical/ systems failure can almost be eliminated. Communication systems on modern aircraft can and often are used to contact ‘engineering’ should an in-flight problem arise. It is completely normal and routine for the pilot to advise Air Traffic of the nature of the problem and the plan to deal with the matter.

Suspect 2 – criminal activity. Where there has been any form of criminal activity involved, heaven and earth are moved to determine the who, the why and the what for. There is never any official reluctance to name, shame and explain. Take MH 17 an example, the extraordinary lengths gone to in order to identify the weapon and the man who ordered the trigger pulled and the man who pulled it. No expense or effort too much. Consider the German Wings event – no hesitation in the investigation delivering a verdict of a ‘murder-suicide’.  

So, why is 370 shrouded in mystery? If and it’s a BIG IF, the Captain did hi-jack his aircraft why not define, beyond a reasonable doubt, why. If (another big one) for example he had threatened a 20/11 scenario and the government had shot it down – to save many lives; then why not say so. Not a pleasant thought, nor an easy decision, but, if all else failed – so be it.

If the aircraft was hi-jacked – by whom is irrelevant; then what demands were made. One does not go to the trouble and risk of an airborne hi-jack for no return on the investment. Demands would have been made; communication of some sort is required, there would be a record of such.

So what we don’t have becomes far more interesting than the twaddle we have. Hi-Jack gone wrong – no reason for secrecy; not in history there ain’t. Pilot suicide - no reason for secrecy; not in history there ain’t. In-flight emergency - no reason for secrecy; not in history there ain’t.

Anything related to aviation (accident or incident) is almost instantly ‘front page’- top of the news – even when it’s a relatively straight forward event – like an engine failure or a cabin pressure issue; much is written and spoken for while then the world moves on.

If the pilot is to be blamed; then let us have hard evidence, data, recordings and ‘the reason why’.

If it was ‘criminal’ then - let us have hard evidence, data, recordings and ‘the reason why’.

If it was ‘mechanical’ let us have hard evidence, data, recordings and ‘the reason why’.

If it is that no one has the slightest, blind clue about the event – then just tell us. Sorry folks – we just don’t know.

Something happened; that’s for damn sure. But, as Holmes said - "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I could handle the truth – but the Pony-Pooh fails to baffle – just leaves me stone cold and disinterested.

Toot – toot.

[Peetwo]

That man at the NPC and BB in reply to AJ - 

I note that on the AP email chain that "that man 'Iggins" has invited Aunty Pru to the Sydney and National Press Club special launch of his MH370 book next week:

 You are invited  to attend a special ‘launch’ of the recently published book by award winning Australian Journalist, Ean Higgins, on the MH370 disaster.
 
The event will be on Thursday 6 June upstairs at the London Hotel Balmain East – 234 Darling Street – from 6:30PM for a 7PM start – concluding around 8PM. 

There will be drinks provided for early comers followed by a cash bar.
 
RSVP essential to  marketing@npc.orgau attention Cathy Bryson by Tuesday 4 June 2019.
 
Ean Higgins has led the world’s coverage of this incredible saga, one of the 21st century’s most baffling, enduring and controversial mysteries. Higgins’ book draws on years of interviews with aviation experts, victims’ families, air crash investigators, professional hunters across land, seas and sky, and takes us inside the saga like never before; written up close, on the inside, and from the major player’s perspectives, to dissect the riddle of MH370’s fate.  More details below.
 
Ean will discuss his book with Walkley Award winning journalist and writer, Ian McPhedran, and there will be an opportunity for Q and A.
 
Hope you can make it.

  
I also note in conjunction with the 'special launch' that Byron Bailey has been providing some background email briefings to Alan Jones...  
 

To: alanjones@2gb.com
Cc: A.Albanese.MP@aph.gov.au; Andrew BOLT; Mark Latham; Kenny, Chris; Paul Whittaker; christopher.dore@news.com.au; georgeandpaul@2gb.com; Higgins, Ean; dick@dsi.com.au
Subject: Fw: THE CHRONICLES OF MH370 - WHAT IS KNOWN
?

Hi Alan, last week you asked for some ' points ' re MH370

Cheers

Byron

---

From: Byron Bailey
Sent: Tuesday, 28 May 2019 5:00 AM
To: byronbailey@hotmail.com

Subject: THE CHRONICLES OF MH370 - WHAT IS KNOWN?

The following facts are known about MH370

A month before the flight, captain Zaharie Shah planned a flight to the southern Indian Ocean, a very remote place where there is no airfields.

2. Shah carried much more fuel than necessary by nominating two destination alternate airfields when none were required as the weather was ok, and Bejing as well had two separate runways with ILS category only requiring a landing visibility of 350 metres.

3. Within the two minutes after Shah said goodnight to ATC a lot of equipment was switched off and the aircraft commenced a manually flown banked turn that was beyond the autopilot limits.

4. The aircraft then flew a complex series of tracks that could only have been the result of a pilot in control.

5. Seven hours later, about 8 am in the SOI, the aircraft was, through clever scientific deduction using hourly satellite transmissions, shown to be crossing latitude 38 south on a southerly course and then commencing an initial rapid descent.

6. The crossing of the 7th arc at latitude 38 south is agreed upon by all the various agencies and aviation experts.

7. Months after the disappearance the ATSB was given Shah's deleted flight plan to the southern Indian Ocean and the FBI also stated they considered Shah responsible for hijacking his own aircraft. My informant was also present when the Transport Minister Warren Truss directed the ATSB to plan the search based on a death dive/ unresponsive pilots contrary to the ATSB expert who wanted the search based on " the ability of the aircraft to glide another 100 miles."

8. There was no floating debris field that would have yielded thousands of small flotsam from a 1,100 kph death dive impact.

9. For 18 months the ATSB denied they had received this information from the FBI until compelled to when the story broke in New York

10. To this day the ATSB, by using high priced end of town lawyers, refuse to release documentation requested under FOI by The Australian.


It appears therefore the Australian Government is desperate to prevent the search being restarted and to even publicly discuss the matter.

This, as outlined in Ean Higgins excellent book " The Hunt for MH370, " stinks to high heaven as a cover up.

In my next MH370 Chronicle I shall present a widely held view by aviation experts and others as to why the Australian Government hides its head in the sand and hopes this matter would fade away.

The geopolitical ramifications of what they are scared the truth may reveal would be enormous.

BYRON BAILEY

Hmm...some more troubles ahead for the Hooded Canary perhaps?

Ref: Update: HVH and the ATSB co-conspirators? 





&..

Fort Fumble White Hats; plus a thread drift?


MTF...P2  

[Peetwo]

MH370: Bailey has a point?


Via the Oz:

We can’t leave MH370 buried under falsehoods



Three Russians and a Ukrainian have finally been charged over the MH17 atrocity that claimed 298 lives, including those of 38 Australians.

The saga of the attack on MH17 started with a lie.

Vladimir Putin blamed it on a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack fighter bomber. I immediately pointed out in an article in The Daily Telegraph that this was impossible. The Vympel infra-red homing missile with its tiny 7kg warhead would have homed in on the engine heat signature from a rear quarter and damaged only an engine; it could not have caused the massive front quarter fragmentation explosion that brought down MH17. As well, an Su-25 SLUF (fighter pilot terminology: slow low ugly f..ker) would not be able to achieve a firing solution on a high-altitude target flying at M.84.

MH370 started with the truth.

The Malaysian prime minister in his first televised address said MH370 was a case of human intervention and the head of Emirates said live on German TV that pilots should not be able to turn off vital equipment in flight. This was confirmed by the FBI supplying the ATSB with the captain’s deleted flight plan that ended in the southern Indian Ocean and saying it considered the MH370 captain to have hijacked his own aircraft.

The end is in sight for the families of MH17 victims and most reached an out-of-court settlement with Malaysia Airlines last year, including an Australian-led class action.

But the reality is that MH17 was flying over a war zone and the reckless, incompetent missile battery thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport.

I was in the Australian Federal Court several years ago as the lone lawyer from Vector Legal representing MH370 and MH17 families and did legal battle with the high-powered legal team opposite from the ATSB and Malaysia Airlines. The Montreal Convention limits payouts to $170,000 for the loss of a breadwinner. If negligence could be proved against an airline then the liability could be unlimited.

The false end of the MH370 saga came with the release last year of the Malaysian government’s final report, a whitewash that absolved, contrary to all the evidence and the opinions of aviation experts, the captain of blame and threw in the red-herring possibility of involvement by a third party.

To its eternal shame the Australian Transport Safety Bureau signed off on this disgraceful lie, so the families of the MH370 victims are essentially dudded from the compensation they deserve.

Truth, transparency and justice should be the cornerstones of a democracy. This is why MH370 remains a prima facie cold-case murder until the aircraft is found. The search area where aviation experts believe MH370 was ditched could be searched in less than a week.

MH370 must be found, as truth matters!

"...the high-powered legal team opposite from the ATSB and Malaysia Airlines..."

Not exactly sure that the legal team was from the ATSB but even if the statement is partly true and there was representations from the ATSB at the Federal Court, that IMO is a major concern for a supposedly fully independent government entity representing our interests as a certified ICAO Annex 13 AAI...    

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

MH370: Bailey has a point?


Via the Oz:

We can’t leave MH370 buried under falsehoods



Three Russians and a Ukrainian have finally been charged over the MH17 atrocity that claimed 298 lives, including those of 38 Australians.

The saga of the attack on MH17 started with a lie.

Vladimir Putin blamed it on a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack fighter bomber. I immediately pointed out in an article in The Daily Telegraph that this was impossible. The Vympel infra-red homing missile with its tiny 7kg warhead would have homed in on the engine heat signature from a rear quarter and damaged only an engine; it could not have caused the massive front quarter fragmentation explosion that brought down MH17. As well, an Su-25 SLUF (fighter pilot terminology: slow low ugly f..ker) would not be able to achieve a firing solution on a high-altitude target flying at M.84.

MH370 started with the truth.

The Malaysian prime minister in his first televised address said MH370 was a case of human intervention and the head of Emirates said live on German TV that pilots should not be able to turn off vital equipment in flight. This was confirmed by the FBI supplying the ATSB with the captain’s deleted flight plan that ended in the southern Indian Ocean and saying it considered the MH370 captain to have hijacked his own aircraft.

The end is in sight for the families of MH17 victims and most reached an out-of-court settlement with Malaysia Airlines last year, including an Australian-led class action.

But the reality is that MH17 was flying over a war zone and the reckless, incompetent missile battery thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport.

I was in the Australian Federal Court several years ago as the lone lawyer from Vector Legal representing MH370 and MH17 families and did legal battle with the high-powered legal team opposite from the ATSB and Malaysia Airlines. The Montreal Convention limits payouts to $170,000 for the loss of a breadwinner. If negligence could be proved against an airline then the liability could be unlimited.

The false end of the MH370 saga came with the release last year of the Malaysian government’s final report, a whitewash that absolved, contrary to all the evidence and the opinions of aviation experts, the captain of blame and threw in the red-herring possibility of involvement by a third party.

To its eternal shame the Australian Transport Safety Bureau signed off on this disgraceful lie, so the families of the MH370 victims are essentially dudded from the compensation they deserve.

Truth, transparency and justice should be the cornerstones of a democracy. This is why MH370 remains a prima facie cold-case murder until the aircraft is found. The search area where aviation experts believe MH370 was ditched could be searched in less than a week.

MH370 must be found, as truth matters!

"...the high-powered legal team opposite from the ATSB and Malaysia Airlines..."

Not exactly sure that the legal team was from the ATSB but even if the statement is partly true and there was representations from the ATSB at the Federal Court, that IMO is a major concern for a supposedly fully independent government entity representing our interests as a certified ICAO Annex 13 AAI...    

Bailey flogging a dead horse - 

MH370 mystery leaves big hole in air safety

The “mystery” of MH370 is just too big a hole in the fabric of airline safety to stand. It cannot be allowed to remain hidden in the southern Indian Ocean.

It is therefore time for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Australian government to come clean and admit they made a huge mistake in basing the search for MH370 on an uncontrolled flight, which wandered magically by itself for seven hours to the DSTG (Defence Scientific Technology Group) hotspot of latitude 38 south on the seventh arc in the southern Indian Ocean.

The ATSB needs to acknowledge the FBI report to them in 2014 that holds the captain responsible for hijacking his own aircraft.

Also, they need to acknowledge the French report on the flaperon, which is held as part of a criminal judicial inquiry into the deaths of four French citizens.

The French consider that the flaperon was in the lowered position, which conclusively proves the MH370 Boeing 777 was ditched in a controlled manner. Kudos to the French for considering the fate of their citizens to be an important matter.

It is time for the ATSB to stop wasting taxpayers’ money by using expensive lawyers to block disclosure to the public of documents pertaining to the search of MH370. They also need to reject the Malaysian government findings of an accident caused by unknown human involvement.

It is time for a coronial inquiry into the deaths of the six Australians aboard MH370, even though the Coroner and Attorney-General have stated that it is not in the public interest.

It is time for certain high-ranking political figures to acknowledge and respond to the considerable correspondence I have forwarded to them.

Silence does not avoid the truth. The veil of secrecy must be lifted.

It is time to stop being complicit in the cover-up of a prima facie case of mass murder and the federal Transport Minister should now accept the overwhelming opinion of real aviation experts that MH370 was a controlled ditching and that the wreckage lies only about 30km south of the area already searched.

MH370 must be found.

If nothing else you've got to admire BB's tenacity...

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

#MH370: Bailey continues to flog that horse?? 


Via the Oz:

Another $10m can help finish search for MH370



Australia has always been regarded as a trustworthy country that could be relied upon to help its neighbours.

This belief is under question now with Australia turning its back on the pleas of the families of the MH370 deceased .

China is our most important neighbour. There were 153 Chinese nationals on board the MH370, representing almost two-thirds of those lost. The MH370 China families are in regular contact with me, requesting I keep up the persistent demand that the search for MH370 be restarted.

It is hard to imagine the awful feeling of emptiness that comes from not knowing the fate of your loved ones.

It is time to put political correctness aside and do the right thing by restarting the search.

I chide Boeing for being so disinterested in the fate of their flagship product, the magnificent Boeing 777, and I question why the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) act like this incredibly important question about airline safety is not worthy of their attention.

I was on China Global News TV several years ago requesting the Chinese government to take up the search.

But the southern Indian Ocean is in our backyard and we should do the right thing.

It is practically a lay-down misere that the captain hijacked his own aircraft and that he ditched it, as planned, past latitude 38 S in the southern Indian Ocean.

The famous 7th arc confirms MH370 was on a southerly heading and the ATSB did search as far as 42 nautical miles along that assumed track but as captain Simon Hardy and I have both pointed out by flying the B777 end-of-flight scenario in B777 simulators, the maximum distance glided was 88 nautical miles.

Allowing however for the lowering of the flap and the turn into wind for the ditching, 70 nautical miles past the 7th arc would be most promising.

This small area, centred on latitude S39.10.0 longitude E 88.18.0, could be searched in its entirety in less than a week for less than $10 million.

MH370 must be found.

MTF...P2 

[Peetwo]

ATSB beyond the pale obfuscating #MH370 families right to know - 

From that man, via the Oz: 

---

Laws shield ATSB while we’re in hell, say MH370 families



Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370, in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

• EAN HIGGINS
  REPORTER
  @EanHiggins
  
• 13 MINUTES AGO OCTOBER 26, 2019
  

Five years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Aust­ralian authorities are still suppressing information desperately sought by bereaved families and refusing to answer claims their search strategy was wrong.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert critic­ism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.

The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.

Five years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Aust­ralian authorities are still suppressing information desperately sought by bereaved families and refusing to answer claims their search strategy was wrong.


The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has employed lawyers from the big end of town to threaten editors of the free press in a failed bid to suppress expert critic­ism of their actions, and has banned private-sector contractors from speaking to the media.


The ATSB’s denial of the public’s right to know outrages relatives of the disappeared to this day.

“To only be told part of a story that has changed our lives, and not for the better, is gut-wrenching and unacceptable,” said Brisbane woman Jeanette Maguire, who lost her sister Cathy and brother-in-law Rob Lawton on MH370.

This week the nation’s media outlets united to launch the Your Right to Know campaign, calling for greater press freedom following a sustained attack on the rights of journalists.

On Monday, The Australian, along with newspapers around the country, blacked out sections of their front pages in a mock demonstr­ation of the constraints restrictive laws place on their ability to publish the truth.

With the Malaysian government having completed its invest­igation into MH370 more than a year ago, Ms Maguire said it was time for the ATSB to come clean.

“If a mistake was made, then so be it, but to redeem themselves, fix it,” she told The Weekend Australian this week. “We need all of the information so the search can continue — find our families.”

MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Radio contact ended 40 minutes into the flight with a routine­ transmission. The Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens soon after as its secondary radar transponder was turned off.

A replay of military primary radar, and automatic satellite “handshakes’’, later showed the aircraft reversed course back over Malaysia, and headed up the Straits of Malacca before turning south on a long track to the southern Indian Ocean.

While under international law Malaysia held responsibility for the overall investigation, at its government’s request Australia led the $200m underwater search for the aircraft, but failed to find any trace of it.

The ATSB had worked on a search strategy based on an assump­tion that MH370 was a “ghost flight” with “unresponsive” pilots at the end of the flight, and crashed down rapidly after running­ out of fuel on autopilot.

Many leading aviation experts believe the facts indicate otherwise, particularly the pattern of damage on wing parts of the aircraft that washed up on the other side of the Indian Ocean.

Those experts believe Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah hijacked his own aircraft and flew it to the end, ditching it, a scenario that would dictate a different search strategy.

The ATSB has refused repeated­ Freedom of Information requests to release this evidence, including the advice the ATSB received­ from French authorities concluding that a flaperon had been lowered, and international expert opinions on the satellite data the bureau claims support its “death dive” theory.

In one FOI refusal, ATSB senior­ officer Colin McNamara said to release the information could damage international ties; while in another, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood invoked laws under which bureau officials can be jailed for two years if they provide information to the media.

Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul died on MH370, said she found “the ATSB silence” to be “frustrating and distressing”.

“How can the ATSB continue to use their draconian laws to ­refuse FOI requests and why does Greg Hood continue to shield the ATSB by using them?” she said this week. “We continue to suffer and those in power, those with the information, continue to keep us in this jailed hell.”

When The Australian published analysis from a team led by senior Canadian air crash investigator Larry Vance concluding that the aircraft had been ditched by a pilot, the ATSB hired law firm Minter Ellison to write to the editor­s in a threatening tone asking­ that they “refrain” from publishing that style of article.

The ATSB banned the leader of the search conducted by Dutch underwater survey firm Fugro, Paul Kennedy, from speaking, and ATSB spokesman Paul Sadler would not say why.

Mr Sadler has repeatedly refused­ to answer questions, including­ this week when he did not respond to an inquiry as to whether the ATSB still believed in its “ghost flight/death dive” theory or now accepted the aircraft was flown to the end by a pilot.

Businessman and former Civil Aviation Safety Authority chairman Dick Smith has said such ATSB actions were “outrageous”, and called on Transport Minister Michael McCormack to demand that Mr Hood run the bureau in a manner consistent with a democracy that believed in freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

---

MTF...P2 

[Kharon]

A stone – Unturned.

MH 370 leaves a mountain of serious questions in it’s wake. But there is one neglected which IMO needs to be answered; it may be a gold seam; maybe not. But its worth asking.

Why was the very competent, search expert Australian AMSA pulled out of the search and the incompetent, no expertise in maritime search ATSB placed in charge?

Usually, AMSA find the wreckage and ATSB ‘investigate’ (yes I know) the wreckage – that’s the system. So why bump AMSA off their anointed task? This is akin to asking the local plumber to do a heart transplant.

It ain’t much of a hole to dig in – but perhaps it’s a new place to dig out information under FOI. First principals – Clarrie.

[Peetwo]

Ref: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines...059d9227f5

Q/ Has the Hooded Canary breached S24 of the ATSB's own Act?

A stone – Unturned.

MH 370 leaves a mountain of serious questions in it’s wake. But there is one neglected which IMO needs to be answered; it may be a gold seam; maybe not. But its worth asking.

Why was the very competent, search expert Australian AMSA pulled out of the search and the incompetent, no expertise in maritime search ATSB placed in charge?

Usually, AMSA find the wreckage and ATSB ‘investigate’ (yes I know) the wreckage – that’s the system. So why bump AMSA off their anointed task? This is akin to asking the local plumber to do a heart transplant.

It ain’t much of a hole to dig in – but perhaps it’s a new place to dig out information under FOI. First principals – Clarrie.

Another stone - Unturned.

Someone kindly sent me a copy of Larry Vance's book, 'MH370 MYSTERY SOLVED' -   

Not really into the semantics of who was at the controls and why (ET still my strongest hunch) , because in all reality until such time as the aircraft is found the speculation, hypothesis and debate is pointless until you have hard irrefutable physical evidence in front of you - END OF.     

This brings me back to the LV book which I have now read from nose to tail because IMO (and it is only my opinion) Chapter 4 of that book brings us as close as we are going to get to an independent SME (subject matter expert) analysing and unpacking the real physical evidence to come up with a completely different 'end of flight' conclusion to that of the Hooded Canary led ATSB...

Reference article extracts from the 3/11/16 Oz article linked above: 

---

...Examination of wreckage from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 indicates its flaps were in a “cruise” position and not lowered for a controlled landing when it slammed into the ocean, according to the air safety watchdog...

...The Australian Transport Safety Bureau based its selection of the area to be searched on analysis of automated signals ­received from MH370 during its fatal flight. They indicated that the aircraft flew steadily southward for several hours before running out of fuel and then falling fast into the ocean. Latest research by the ATSB includes the results of an examination of a wing flap ­believed to have been torn from the jet as it hit the water. It says the flap is unlikely to have been ­deployed for landing as it would have been had there been a pilot at the controls...

See HERE for link for Google review of Larry Vance book. I am sure that there are people out there with the expertise to refute some of the evidence and analysis put forward by Vance and his fellow SMEs. However I challenge anyone to completely ignore the documented evidence and analysis to the point where the ATSB 'end of flight' hypothesis is of an overwhelming higher probability than that of Vance and his crew.

If you agree that based on the balance of probabilities the pilot controlled 'end of flight' scenario is more likely than that of 'ghost flight scenario, then the next question is if Vance and his former TSBC (SME) colleagues (plus presumably the French BEA with the flaperon) came to those conclusions based on the physical/pictorial evidence of two major components of the RH wing of MH370 -

Q1/ How come the ATSB boffins didn't come to the same or similar conclusions?

This could suggest that they know where it is and for some reason they don't want it found? This is where the remote hacking or electronic takeover scenario could be the hypothesis for why?

Q2/ However my major concern is why is the ATSB and by association Australia involved? And final question -

Q3/ Has the ATSB breached S24 of it's own Act through blind manipulation/ignorance/ineptitude/malfeasance of not properly examining and analysing the physical evidence of both the RH flap or flaperon to discount the possibility of pilot controlled ditching of MH370?

link - https://legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00617

24  Offence to hinder etc. an investigation

            (1)  A person commits an offence if:

                    (a)  the person engages in conduct; and

                    (b)  the person is reckless as to whether the conduct will adversely affect an investigation:

                              (i)  that is being conducted at that time; or

                            (ii)  that could be conducted at a later time into an immediately reportable matter; and

                    ©  the conduct has the result of adversely affecting such an investigation (whether or not the investigation had commenced at the time of the conduct); and

                    (d)  the conduct is not authorised by the Chief Commissioner.

Penalty:  Imprisonment for 12 months.

MTF...P2 

[P7_TOM]

As the list of unanswered questions continues to grow.

Holmes" - “I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it?...........

One thing has always troubled my ruminations.  Hood invoked ‘jail terms’ for people who understand, very well indeed, the need for ‘silence’ until all investigation is ‘done, dusted and presented’. IMO there was ‘dissention’ in the camp.

Vance is a qualified investigator; right or wrong his conclusions have the benefit of training, long experience and insight. They must be considered and ‘discussed’ by his peers and equals. It is what sensible folk do – P2 how many ‘sensible’, supported ‘discussions have we heard now on any manner of accident or incident? Lots is the answer. Dissention – absolutely. Argument – most definitely. Resolution and consensus – eventually. In the end, it all come down to an agreement of some form; on the balance of probability, that XYZ was the root cause – ABC the consequences.

But - that Hood shut down his own teams open discussion down, under publicly stated threat of a gaol term, has always been a mystery to me.

MTF – but the Vance argument – related to ‘Span wise crushing’ is worthy of ‘proper’ consideration and further detailed examination of the physical evidence. The part referring to the ‘witness marks’, stand alone, is compelling.

This where industry lack of faith in the integrity of ATSB raises it’s ugly head, with due cause, I may add. Why can’t there be open discussion? Seems to that “conduct adversely” etc. is a valid point of order M’Lud. There is a list of where this has seemingly (not publicly discussed) occurred for many accidents; you know that list as a well as I do.

That’s it – ET rules OK. (When it comes to a choice between an Ale and 370; all bets are off).

[Kharon]

Back to basics.

P2 - “[The Australian Transport Safety Bureau based its selection of the area to be searched]” etc.


Why was it the ATSB that ‘selected’ the area to be searched. When an aircraft or ship is ‘lost’ it is always the AMSA that manages and coordinates the ‘search’. That is one of their primary functions and they have, in the past, proven to be very good at it. Contacts, expertise, and working agreements in place with ‘emergency’ services to support a search effort.

Then I wonder about the methodology used to define the search area – again, ATSB have no expertise in that area, AMSA have; and then the speed at which the area selected reduced in size based on limited data raised many an eyebrow. The speed at which ATSB reached their conclusion of a ‘ghost flight’ on flimsy evidence begs many questions.

Speculation and theorising is all well and good, in the media, in professional circles, in academia – I’d bet good money there were (and are still) some on going ‘discussions’. This is all a normal, routine response to any air accident, particularly 370 as it is shrouded in mystery. But for a government department only the known provable facts should be considered. Investigation first, evidence second, search area definition based on that; not on one of a possible three ‘viable’ scenarios.

There is a growing number of people who are coming to the conclusion that it would be most inconvenient to find the aircraft. There is some fairly substantial reasoning behind that theory; I do stress ‘theory’. But, the question begs a honest answer.

Time passing usually blunts interest and inquiry; but 370 remains a ‘great mystery’. The biggest question of all is why has it not been found? Perhaps it is not meant to be found. If the spectre of Electronic Terrorism (ET) has been seen, it would be a fair bet that no government would want it to be known. That, stand alone, supports a reasonable argument for what appears to be a cover up. The first clue, IMO, is the summary dismissal of a world class Search and Rescue operation (AMSA) and replacing it with an accident investigator – without an aircraft to ‘investigate’.

Fascinating idle speculation I know; but the Vance book raises many questions; which deserve at very least, serious academic discussion.

Toot - toot.